Is the key to inclusive practice a generous and accommodating leader?
Or does it depend on a single artistic director with a strong vision?
The leadership models that emerged from the UK practices suggested something different. Leadership was not primarily understood as a matter of individual personality or talent, but as a question of structure: who makes decisions, where consultation takes place, and how time and responsibility are organised.
What was being explored was not simply how to identify the right leader, but how decision-making, leadership, and succession could be shared, sustained, and continually reconfigured over time.
Leadership Is Structure, Not a Face
What Candoco is currently re-examining is not only the question of who appears on stage, but also whose voices shape the direction of the organization itself.
Rather than placing responsibility for artistic direction in the hands of a single artistic director, Candoco has been exploring ways to distribute that responsibility through the creation of an assembly—a space convened when significant decisions need to be made.
This approach suggests that inclusion is not limited to the content of artistic work or the visibility of different bodies on stage. It extends to the structures through which decisions are made, influence is exercised, and the future direction of an organization is determined.
Put differently, leadership is not only a question of who becomes the face of an organization. It is also a question of who holds decision-making power, and how that power is distributed.
“We’re going to have a distributed artistic direction. We’re going to form an assembly every time we need to make a curatorial decision.”
—— Melanie Precious, Candoco Dance Company
Time Is Not a Cost, but a Condition of Practice
Stopgap’s ongoing company classes, DanceSyndrome’s extended rehearsal periods, and the many years of practice accumulated by AMICI all point to a similar understanding.
In each case, the time required for the work was not treated as a limitation or inefficiency. Rather, taking time was understood as a fundamental condition of the practice itself.
Movement needs time to settle into the body. Relationships need time to develop. New roles and pathways need time to emerge.
None of these processes unfold at the pace of a short-term project. They require a different rhythm—one that allows learning, trust, artistic growth, and shared experience to accumulate over time.
Time, therefore, is not an operational luxury. It becomes a precondition that supports both collaborative work and artistic quality.
“When working with people with learning disabilities, we know that time is really important. So we need a longer rehearsal period.”
—— Sophie Tickle, DanceSyndrome
Inheritance Is Not About Preserving Ideals, but Preserving Conditions
It was striking that after the death of its founder, AMICI did not rush to formalize its methods.
Similarly, Candoco described itself not as a group of founders, but as custodians of the company.
What matters is not preserving past forms exactly as they were.
What matters is recognizing what is essential to a practice, and protecting the conditions that allow it to emerge, while adapting outward forms to changing times and environments.
For AMICI, this meant protecting the principle of being together, and allowing creation to begin from performers’ own improvisations.
For Candoco, it meant holding a long legacy while updating organizational structures and decision-making in response to present realities.
Inheritance, then, is not about fixing a method permanently. It is about preserving core conditions while allowing them to remain alive in new environments.
“We are stewards, we are the custodians of the company, we are not the founders.”
—— Lucie Mirkova, Candoco Dance Company
■ What Emerged
Candoco is rethinking the form of a company that has existed for 35 years, shifting away from concentrating direction in a single Artistic Director and toward creating decision-making assemblies whenever needed.
At Stopgap, long-term employed dancers sustain continuous company classes, through which techniques, relationships, and artistic perspectives are gradually passed on.
At DanceSyndrome, weekly ongoing programs and extended rehearsal periods do more than deepen understanding and relationships. They also create the foundation through which people can move from participating, to supporting, to leading, and even to engaging in choreography.
What becomes visible here is that leadership is not determined solely by charisma or individual ability.
Who makes decisions. How time is protected. How practice is passed forward.
Leadership appeared within the organization of these conditions themselves.
■ Returning to Practice: Questions for Your Own Context
In our own environments, where are important decisions concentrated?
And where is time being protected—not to rush judgment, but to allow it to mature?